Resetting Surface Pro 3 via MS Supplied Recovery Media

Unsurprisingly the Windows 10 Technical Preview (build 10130) was very unstable on my Surface Pro 3 128GB/i5/4GB – primarily I was plagued with Intel Video Driver crashes, plain grey/white screens and WiFi issues – hey it is a technical preview after-all! Restoring back to a previous version of Windows (i.e. Windows 8.1) requires recovery media, luckily Microsoft supply this for you, as outlined in the following location: https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/downloadablerecoveryimage

Once you have download the image use the following instructions to create the media:

Insert your FAT32 USB drive into the USB port of your Surface or PC. For Surface Pro models and Surface 3, your USB drive should be at least 16 GB.

From the desktop, open File Explorer.

Tap and hold (or right-click) on the USB drive, and choose Format.

Select FAT32 as the file system and enter a Volume label (for example, Recovery) to name the USB drive, and tap or click Start.

Tap or click OK to erase the contents of the USB drive.

Tap or click OK when the format is complete.

Double click the recovery image that you downloaded to open and unzip (extract) the files.

Next, drag the files from the compressed folder to the USB drive you formatted.